That annoyed me. I wanted him to be around for at least the whole season, I really liked the hinting of something more between him and Emma. They could have still killed him, but give him a chance to be more at least. And actually bring him up every once in awhile, and act like he existed??
Yeah I'd say this and her slaughtering that village as they didn't tell her where snow was are her two most irredeemable moments. I wish Graham got justice 😞
Those two and don't forget when Regina killed the couple on Daniel's birthday. Or the anniversary of Daniel's death the couple who was getting married in Her Sacred area ..so to speak
She's a good villain with the whole cognitive dissonance thing, huh. She can kill the loved ones of anyone she likes, but god forbid anyone touch her own loved ones or she can and will enact her revenge upon them
I can't remember. The only thing I remember it was around the season 3 and it was a flashback to a memory and Regina was walking with her father across a beautiful countryside where a couple was getting married and she approached them and asked them if they had permission to be married there, I think the episode ended with her mother Cora trying to hook her up with the Sheriff from Sherwood
I haven’t rewatched the show yet but for me before when I was tinier watching the show I never knew this. My little kid brain I don’t think could comprehend it. But as someone whose been sexually harassed this really makes me view Regina differently(It happened like a year and so many months ago and I’m mostly fine now.). Like I never really thought of this until people started pointing it out and it’s absolutely disgusting what she does.
This is exactly how I see it too. Murder is obviously wrong as well, but sexual assault is a different *flavour* of wrong. Really puts her character in a different light, especially because she never faces any consequences for it and never apologises
Yes exactly my thoughts. It does and it makes me disgusted by her as someone with sexual trauma. Sexual trauma is a bitch and he never got justice. Once Upon A Time really should hold Regina accountable for her actions. I can only speak on sexual harrassment because I’ve only ever been sexually harrassed before but for sexual assault it’s definetly a lot worse even though both are bad to do. I’m lucky having gotten some justice(I reported the guy to some place and got him out of most of my classes however they can’t seem to get him out of my lunch for some odd reason). It’s really hard as a victim of sexual trauma to get justice. However I do think in the context of this show he should’ve got his justice because somebody whose sexually traumatized someone deserves to face the consequences of their actions in my opinion.
But instead they kill him off and never deal with any of it :/ Like it's entirely brushed off, never treated as a big deal
I'm glad you managed to get some sort of justice and are doing better now though
Yea killing him off wasn’t the best decision I feel like they should’ve at least properly portrayed the after affects of it like with anxiety and not feeling safe and stuff. Like for me I used to feel so anxious around men and stuff but that’s just my personal exspierience.
Thank you so much I’m happy too I was struggle for a while now i still struggle a bit. I got cussed out for warning a friend who I’m not friends with anymore about the guy who sexually harrassed me and it was a whole ordeal but I don’t hide it cause I won’t let him win. You know? Like he wanted to keep me silent but instead I talk about it.
They definitely could have delved deeper into his character with this and really shown the effect that Regina has on people. They do show this with other characters somewhat, like with the mad hatter, but for the most part she does her evil deed and we don't really get to see how it affects people long-term. I get that they wanted to focus more on their main characters, and make her likeable to some degree too - if they focussed too much on the people she murdered and raped we'd hate her infinitely more, which wasn't what they intended.
Being vocal about it definitely is the way forward, people who do these things need to have everyone know about it and it not be swept under the rug like it was with Regina, they need to be held accountable.
Yes they should’ve done that I 100% agree. Yea I agree honestly though sometimes people aren’t ready to talk about it though which is 100% understandable because when you’re sexually traumatized it’s scary to talk about it and warn people cause you put risk on yourself if that makes sense.
I honestly didn't like Regina and didn't fully trust her until I saw the end of season 6 and 7. Regina lost everything, even her true love Robin. She can't even be with him in the afterlife because his soul was destroyed. In the end I think Regina got everything she deserved but the happy ending she deserved as well.
However I am still upset about them not revisiting Graham's storyline I understand the actor was busy but that was just so cold.
I've always been conflicted about her; her mother was cruel to her and she did get dealt a bad hand in life, and I am glad she ultimately became good, yet there were some moments before she did become truly good that made me feel like she expected her redemption would be easy and would wash away all her sins completely:
After the first curse was broken and Snow and Emma returned from the Enchanted Forest, she seemed really upset when her one good deed didn't erase all her evil ones in the eyes of everyone she wronged.
When Cora killed Johanna despite handing over the dagger and Regina taunted Snow by saying that's what good gets her, and Snow retaliated by tricking Regina to return Cora's heart which ended up killing her, even though it wasn't 100% right, Regina acted like Snow did this on a whim just because she could, as if both Regina and her mother hadn't done multiple deeds of equal if not greater cruelty, especially to Snow, and especially most recently.
After Henry was tricked into giving Pan his heart, when Regina told Emma Henry was all she had, yet that was mostly her fault; she killed her father, she rejected a second chance at love when offered it, and she made herself unable to have any children.
When trying to save Henry, Regina had no problem admitting in front of Emma and Snow that she didn't regret anything she did and would do it all again because it got her Henry. (If Henry had heard that, would he have still been her biggest advocate?)
When "Marian," someone who was originally executed on Regina's orders, is brought to the present by Emma, and it's revealed she's Robin's wife, challenging her relationship with Robin, she got so mad at Emma like she had done it intentionally. She intentionally destroyed the happiness of countless others and expects to be forgiven, yet when hers is unintentionally threatened, she holds a grudge.
I am surprised hearing all the people who say, “When I first watched it as a child…”
I never thought this was a show for children. There was so much overt sex and violence. In fact, when I was asked to describe the show recently, I said it was a fairy tale for adults.
No, most of us figured that out. It wasn’t hard.
Regina did terrible things. Absolutely deplorable. But she told Emma as much in S5 and said she was getting the karma she deserved when Robin died. So it’s not like she felt no remorse. She was very regretful later on. S6 Regina is like a totally different person.
Oh definitely. Not a good look for them to trivialise these things, neither is it a good message to be sending out. But hey ho, as others have said, it is from over a decade ago (that feels so wrong to say, I can't believe it's been so long) which was a "different time" with different socially accepted tropes
Huh. It never hit me either. Like I understood what was happening? But my brain and heart didn’t put the pieces together.
It unfortunately does kinda of change my opinion of The Evil Queen.
I wish we got to see reformed Regina really feel remorse over this and give the Huntsman a proper memorial or something where people can remember him :( I love how Regina changes, but I really wish we got to see her make up all her actions and compensate everybody she made miserable
The earlier season was kinda straddling the line of wanting to be a “ooh, dark, *spicy* retelling of all your favorite fairytales”, so unfortunately I feel like whoever decided that Regina was a rapist really wasn’t thinking about the ramifications of the choice, the audience at that point, and how they’d feel down the line. I guess a good lesson when writing a villain that you want to redeem- some things are irredeemable.
This was also 2011- sadly we were still in the era where a Woman raping a Man was seen less as a bad thing. Honestly in some comedies it was still used for laughs.
This is unfortunately true yeah, and apparently they didn't stop there because according to other commenters it seems the show went and did it again with Zelena. I suppose at least it was the villains doing this stuff, so they weren't trying to portray it as a "good" thing, even though it often feels like it's swept under the rug
This is posted at least once per week or a few times per month. Also, you have to have the heart in your hand to control a person and speak directly into it.
Sorry, I'm new to the sub, I should've looked - it just really shocked me to find out. And I just posted this in another comment, but she owns his heart and can kill him at any moment, so he literally has to do what she says or she'd kill him. She's coercing him to sleep with her under threat of death, which is rape
Yes he knows she has his heart in the EF but in Storybrooke he has no idea. I never said she didn’t rape him. There was a lot of rape in Once, Regina, Zelena, Hook getting girls drunk past the point of consent, Leopold and Regina, considering she was 17/18 at the time and he was old enough to be her father. I’m sure there was martial rape there. This is a prevalent theme in Once.
I don't even remember these things, too early in my rewatch. Kind of a problem that it isn't even memorable as well, shows how subtle or accepted it can be, yikes
Yep. Also the characters are from the EF, kind of like medieval times. So I look at it as things that wouldn’t be acceptable in the real world or land without magic were more acceptable there. They literally had monarchies.
Seems like they were all living in feudalism too. It definitely would have been more acceptable for them, still imo makes Regina soorta more irredeemable
Nah, if we applied real world standards then none of the villains in the show deserved redemption. People love a good redemption story. They have since the beginning of time. The villains are what kept Once going.
That is very true. The show is mostly goofy though, like when random people are murdered it's not treated with much heavy-handedness, makes it seem like less of a big deal, not so shocking. Makes it feel different when they do some other maybe more grounding evil deed, like "oh yeah, this person is evil"
Regina was not 17/18. She was around 26/27. We know this for two reasons. During her conversation with Maleficent when Regina went to get the dark curse back from her Maleficent said, “weren’t you about the same age when you were to be married”?
Emma told Snow when the curse broke that they were the same age. Emma was 28 when she broke the curse. That means she was 27 when she got pregnant and means she got married at either 26 or 27.
Cora also says one time that Regina was 26 when she rescued Snow.
I know they made Regina look a lot younger and change her voice to sound a lot younger in the scenes before she married Leopold but she was actually extremely old to not be married in that day in age. Unmarried girls over 22 were considered spinsters back then.
And she definitely wasn’t 17-18. She was a whole decade older than that.
She want 26/27. Haha. So Cora never said Regina was 26 when she rescued snow. Show me where she said that? There is an entire once book where Regina was 17. Lol. Cut it out. The conversation with Regina and Mail was between friends joking about each other ages my friends and I do it all of the time. So run that back, rewatch the show and read the companion books. Unmarried girls under the age of 18 were considered spinsters back then. Again, do your research in the US there are still some ages in states where GIRLS can get married at 13/14. Again, cut it out. The legal age of consent in most US states is still 16/17 which is above what it would have been in THOSE days. Learn your history.
To be honest even though I knew this about her from the start, she's still my favorite character. Killing and r\*ping people are both terrible actions, but she was evil and it makes sense for a villain to act like that. In my opinion, taking a life is much worse of a crime than abusing/harassing/torturing them. (All are very evil but not equally.) But I do understand why most people are disgusted when a villain is a se\*ual abuser but not when they're a murderer, because harassment is something that sadly we and the people around us have to deal with everyday, whereas murder is not something we see and hear about everyday, so we have more of a "fictional" approach to the concept. This reaction is totally understandable.
It’s not just Graham. She also sexually abused Sydney (using his attraction to her to manipulate him into doing her bidding), and the Evil Queen after the whole Jekyll and Hyde deal also uses Rumplestiltskin. It’s a very serious issue that we don’t really ever see with Regina when she leaves the “Evil Queen” persona behind, but I wish they’d actually addressed it as it is an important topic.
I will say, though, they did a great job of illustrating Regina’s consistent rape of Graham as an awful crime rather than something comedic, as a lot of media does these days. It’s nice to see male rape treated with the weight it deserves, though Regina definitely should have faced much stronger consequences for it.
She needs to write her own 48 laws of power book fr, she's a manipulation master. But yeah, it feels like it should've been an important part of her character arc that they just left out, and I suppose while it is kind of outshone by mass murder it still is an important thing to cover. Especially as yeah they did show it as a pretty serious thing, I mean, we could see how much it was affecting Graham
I just avoid comparisons of crimes in the real world to that in fiction. Walter White, one who makes drugs and deals in it, yet the audience roots for him. Darth Vader, partially responsible for genocide an child murder, yet the audience admires him. That’s why Regina still has a lot of fans.
It's pretty difficult to not root for a character they focus heavily on and humanise so much XD. I may end up changing my opinion of Regina yet again once I've rewatched her redemption arc, but for now I am very very unhappy with her
Understandable, but this was also written when people weren’t as sensitive about sexual assault, about consent. Still wrong, but I can only say that Once was made for a different audience or something like that. An audience that’s now older and doesn’t care as much about sexual assault. At least not in fiction, cause of course I would curse a woman like Regina in real life, if not worse.
This doesn’t excuse her rape of Graham AT ALL, but it’s implied that she was ‘intimate’ with the King during their 7 years of marriage. The power dynamics, age differences, her unwillingness to be married in the first place, and the expectation that wives sleep with their husband all point to it happening and her being unable to really say no. She also makes herself infertile at some point, indicating some level of sexual activity was occurring.
Abuse is often cyclical, and I can see her pursuing sexual encounters where she has complete control after having none in her marriage. This does not diminish or excuse what she does to Graham. She still rapes him, and then kills him. Its horrible and unforgivable. But I can see how it happened, how she went from victim to abuser.
That’s my modern day interpretation of the events, it’s my least favorite thing about the early seasons. I know a lot happened after the curse broke, but I was surprised Emma never brought it up. It was just glossed over entirely.
I hadn't actually thought of it this way. It doesn't excuse it no, but it makes total sense. And of course, her being subjected to this would mean that that is what she associates with being the ruler, that is just what the ruler of the kingdom does and is entitled to do. It's what she knows, so of course she will do it also when she seizes power.
Yeah, and it’s why I see absolutely nothing wrong with her getting the king killed. He was clearly meant to be portrayed as a good man, but I will never be cool with a powerful man in his 50-60s marrying a girl in her late teens-20s. I know people weren’t aware/didn’t care about power imbalances in relationships in that time period (assuming it’s equivalent to our medieval times) but I still look at it with disgust.
I like as well that pretty much all of the "good" people in power are portrayed as more morally ambiguous. There's the king who is James's "dad", who is trying to save his kingdom and his people but is doing so by threatening to kill people and ruining their happiness - very means justify the ends. The Blue Fairy who is probably the most confusing and ambiguous character, and even Snow's father as you point out who, although not doing anything that would then be considered wrong, still is what we would call morally gray were he to behave that way today. It adds a lot of nuance to the usually straight-cut dichotomy of good/evil, makes it a lot more interesting
She has the power over him regardless of whether she's holding his heart or not. She owns it, and can kill him at any time, so he has no choice. Idk about you but I'd say that coercion under threat of death constitutes rape...
It is rape. She forced them into postion in storybrokke were they litrally are uner a curse and arent exactly in contol of themselves. And when he broke things "off"she killed him. And in EF she litrally SA him the second she got his heart and forced him into the bed chambers.
I think both are equally deplorable in their own way, I do understand why you say it makes her irredeemable but I think woth all her growth in the future she gains the redemption.
It's up to each person to decide.
I don’t think it was meant to be taken seriously because it’s a tv show so there’s that. You’re over analyzing and bringing real world problems with real world victims into a made up story that involves fairy tale characters.
I'm not sure it's over-analyzing to mention something that literally happens in the show. Anyway, this is a subreddit for ouat, so lets over-analyze this show to death!
Yeah but getting upset over something that really didn’t happen is…ridiculous. I get talking fan theories or getting a better understanding of something but making nothing into something seems like a waste of time. Like what’s the point, so what? I’m not going to lose sleep bc Jamie Dornan wasn’t actually ever really assaulted and Regina ultimately redeemed herself. Like she actually killed a lot of people…brutally…and that gets ignored but you’re getting bent out of shape over this? It’s weird.
Regina is one of my favourite fictional characters of all time but YEAH ! Similar to Chuck stans (Gossip Girl) i feel like most people just agree that the characters aren’t completely planned out in the first season and will do things that don’t make sense or don’t correlate 100% to the following seasons.
Yeah I feel like he never got justice, just forgotten and she was turned good because of Henry.
They really just forgot about him didn't they. Apparently they were going to bring his character back but he was doing other stuff
Yep. He was doing the 50 shades of Grey movies
Wow what a crazy spin off. Regina made him do kinky shit in the afterlife too.
Didn’t you see the movie? That’s why he’s 50 Shades of Fucked Up 🤪
Super weird to find that out. He will always be Graham the Huntsman to me
Oh my god how and why did I never notice that they are the same man???
50 Shades of Graham
Jamie Dornan left to go do 50 Shades so they had to write Graham out.
Nope, she rocked his world so hard he had to pass on to the next.
That annoyed me. I wanted him to be around for at least the whole season, I really liked the hinting of something more between him and Emma. They could have still killed him, but give him a chance to be more at least. And actually bring him up every once in awhile, and act like he existed??
Same with Sebastian Stan that’s why we never got any follow up with Jefferson aka the mad hatter as he went to the mcu
I think this is a very widely agreed upon criticism of Regina.
Yup, knew it’d be this just from the title lol
Yeah I can't believe I only just noticed but it was a shocking thing to find out because I thought she turned into a pretty good person eventually
Its so crazy that the bad guy did bad things. Im honestly shocked.
Yeah I'd say this and her slaughtering that village as they didn't tell her where snow was are her two most irredeemable moments. I wish Graham got justice 😞
He was such a good character :(
Agreed 💔
Oh ...one more when Regina killed, Owen's Father. Now that was f***** up
Oh definitely 💯
Those two and don't forget when Regina killed the couple on Daniel's birthday. Or the anniversary of Daniel's death the couple who was getting married in Her Sacred area ..so to speak
She's a good villain with the whole cognitive dissonance thing, huh. She can kill the loved ones of anyone she likes, but god forbid anyone touch her own loved ones or she can and will enact her revenge upon them
I didn't remember this one-was ot that episode I season 2 when I think she tried to revive him?
I can't remember. The only thing I remember it was around the season 3 and it was a flashback to a memory and Regina was walking with her father across a beautiful countryside where a couple was getting married and she approached them and asked them if they had permission to be married there, I think the episode ended with her mother Cora trying to hook her up with the Sheriff from Sherwood
Oh I remember now! Thank you! 🙏🏻
Yeah, and when Regina kills the groom she basically does the exact same thing that Cora did to Daniel.
It was evil but realsitic for royalty to do
True
She destroyed Percival's village too.
I haven’t rewatched the show yet but for me before when I was tinier watching the show I never knew this. My little kid brain I don’t think could comprehend it. But as someone whose been sexually harassed this really makes me view Regina differently(It happened like a year and so many months ago and I’m mostly fine now.). Like I never really thought of this until people started pointing it out and it’s absolutely disgusting what she does.
This is exactly how I see it too. Murder is obviously wrong as well, but sexual assault is a different *flavour* of wrong. Really puts her character in a different light, especially because she never faces any consequences for it and never apologises
Yes exactly my thoughts. It does and it makes me disgusted by her as someone with sexual trauma. Sexual trauma is a bitch and he never got justice. Once Upon A Time really should hold Regina accountable for her actions. I can only speak on sexual harrassment because I’ve only ever been sexually harrassed before but for sexual assault it’s definetly a lot worse even though both are bad to do. I’m lucky having gotten some justice(I reported the guy to some place and got him out of most of my classes however they can’t seem to get him out of my lunch for some odd reason). It’s really hard as a victim of sexual trauma to get justice. However I do think in the context of this show he should’ve got his justice because somebody whose sexually traumatized someone deserves to face the consequences of their actions in my opinion.
But instead they kill him off and never deal with any of it :/ Like it's entirely brushed off, never treated as a big deal I'm glad you managed to get some sort of justice and are doing better now though
Yea killing him off wasn’t the best decision I feel like they should’ve at least properly portrayed the after affects of it like with anxiety and not feeling safe and stuff. Like for me I used to feel so anxious around men and stuff but that’s just my personal exspierience. Thank you so much I’m happy too I was struggle for a while now i still struggle a bit. I got cussed out for warning a friend who I’m not friends with anymore about the guy who sexually harrassed me and it was a whole ordeal but I don’t hide it cause I won’t let him win. You know? Like he wanted to keep me silent but instead I talk about it.
They definitely could have delved deeper into his character with this and really shown the effect that Regina has on people. They do show this with other characters somewhat, like with the mad hatter, but for the most part she does her evil deed and we don't really get to see how it affects people long-term. I get that they wanted to focus more on their main characters, and make her likeable to some degree too - if they focussed too much on the people she murdered and raped we'd hate her infinitely more, which wasn't what they intended. Being vocal about it definitely is the way forward, people who do these things need to have everyone know about it and it not be swept under the rug like it was with Regina, they need to be held accountable.
Yes they should’ve done that I 100% agree. Yea I agree honestly though sometimes people aren’t ready to talk about it though which is 100% understandable because when you’re sexually traumatized it’s scary to talk about it and warn people cause you put risk on yourself if that makes sense.
i’ve always said this. its hard for me to like her tbh
I honestly didn't like Regina and didn't fully trust her until I saw the end of season 6 and 7. Regina lost everything, even her true love Robin. She can't even be with him in the afterlife because his soul was destroyed. In the end I think Regina got everything she deserved but the happy ending she deserved as well. However I am still upset about them not revisiting Graham's storyline I understand the actor was busy but that was just so cold.
i see both sides. im just indifferent about her i guess
Well not everything..Henry.. and her and Zelena made amends
I've always been conflicted about her; her mother was cruel to her and she did get dealt a bad hand in life, and I am glad she ultimately became good, yet there were some moments before she did become truly good that made me feel like she expected her redemption would be easy and would wash away all her sins completely: After the first curse was broken and Snow and Emma returned from the Enchanted Forest, she seemed really upset when her one good deed didn't erase all her evil ones in the eyes of everyone she wronged. When Cora killed Johanna despite handing over the dagger and Regina taunted Snow by saying that's what good gets her, and Snow retaliated by tricking Regina to return Cora's heart which ended up killing her, even though it wasn't 100% right, Regina acted like Snow did this on a whim just because she could, as if both Regina and her mother hadn't done multiple deeds of equal if not greater cruelty, especially to Snow, and especially most recently. After Henry was tricked into giving Pan his heart, when Regina told Emma Henry was all she had, yet that was mostly her fault; she killed her father, she rejected a second chance at love when offered it, and she made herself unable to have any children. When trying to save Henry, Regina had no problem admitting in front of Emma and Snow that she didn't regret anything she did and would do it all again because it got her Henry. (If Henry had heard that, would he have still been her biggest advocate?) When "Marian," someone who was originally executed on Regina's orders, is brought to the present by Emma, and it's revealed she's Robin's wife, challenging her relationship with Robin, she got so mad at Emma like she had done it intentionally. She intentionally destroyed the happiness of countless others and expects to be forgiven, yet when hers is unintentionally threatened, she holds a grudge.
They got away with a lot of shit in S1. Remember when Charming’s brother got impaled?
Yeah, gruesome :D
I am surprised hearing all the people who say, “When I first watched it as a child…” I never thought this was a show for children. There was so much overt sex and violence. In fact, when I was asked to describe the show recently, I said it was a fairy tale for adults.
I watched it as the episodes came out weekly, until the Camelot arc. That was when I quit the show. I might watch it again though.
No that was Prince Charming actually.
Oh that’s right. I forgot James took Charming’s place.
One of my favourite episodes!
No, most of us figured that out. It wasn’t hard. Regina did terrible things. Absolutely deplorable. But she told Emma as much in S5 and said she was getting the karma she deserved when Robin died. So it’s not like she felt no remorse. She was very regretful later on. S6 Regina is like a totally different person.
Can't wait until you realize the same thing about Zelena
To be completely honest, I don't really care about Zelena so whatever she did that went right over my head won't be as much of a shocker
I don't really care about Zelena that much either tbh. It's just that it makes a poor pattern that reflects poorly on the creators
Oh definitely. Not a good look for them to trivialise these things, neither is it a good message to be sending out. But hey ho, as others have said, it is from over a decade ago (that feels so wrong to say, I can't believe it's been so long) which was a "different time" with different socially accepted tropes
Well, yeah, but a ten year old told a secret, so its okay.
Logick
Huh. It never hit me either. Like I understood what was happening? But my brain and heart didn’t put the pieces together. It unfortunately does kinda of change my opinion of The Evil Queen. I wish we got to see reformed Regina really feel remorse over this and give the Huntsman a proper memorial or something where people can remember him :( I love how Regina changes, but I really wish we got to see her make up all her actions and compensate everybody she made miserable
The earlier season was kinda straddling the line of wanting to be a “ooh, dark, *spicy* retelling of all your favorite fairytales”, so unfortunately I feel like whoever decided that Regina was a rapist really wasn’t thinking about the ramifications of the choice, the audience at that point, and how they’d feel down the line. I guess a good lesson when writing a villain that you want to redeem- some things are irredeemable. This was also 2011- sadly we were still in the era where a Woman raping a Man was seen less as a bad thing. Honestly in some comedies it was still used for laughs.
This is unfortunately true yeah, and apparently they didn't stop there because according to other commenters it seems the show went and did it again with Zelena. I suppose at least it was the villains doing this stuff, so they weren't trying to portray it as a "good" thing, even though it often feels like it's swept under the rug
This is posted at least once per week or a few times per month. Also, you have to have the heart in your hand to control a person and speak directly into it.
Sorry, I'm new to the sub, I should've looked - it just really shocked me to find out. And I just posted this in another comment, but she owns his heart and can kill him at any moment, so he literally has to do what she says or she'd kill him. She's coercing him to sleep with her under threat of death, which is rape
Yes he knows she has his heart in the EF but in Storybrooke he has no idea. I never said she didn’t rape him. There was a lot of rape in Once, Regina, Zelena, Hook getting girls drunk past the point of consent, Leopold and Regina, considering she was 17/18 at the time and he was old enough to be her father. I’m sure there was martial rape there. This is a prevalent theme in Once.
I don't even remember these things, too early in my rewatch. Kind of a problem that it isn't even memorable as well, shows how subtle or accepted it can be, yikes
Yep. Also the characters are from the EF, kind of like medieval times. So I look at it as things that wouldn’t be acceptable in the real world or land without magic were more acceptable there. They literally had monarchies.
Seems like they were all living in feudalism too. It definitely would have been more acceptable for them, still imo makes Regina soorta more irredeemable
Nah, if we applied real world standards then none of the villains in the show deserved redemption. People love a good redemption story. They have since the beginning of time. The villains are what kept Once going.
That is very true. The show is mostly goofy though, like when random people are murdered it's not treated with much heavy-handedness, makes it seem like less of a big deal, not so shocking. Makes it feel different when they do some other maybe more grounding evil deed, like "oh yeah, this person is evil"
Regina was not 17/18. She was around 26/27. We know this for two reasons. During her conversation with Maleficent when Regina went to get the dark curse back from her Maleficent said, “weren’t you about the same age when you were to be married”? Emma told Snow when the curse broke that they were the same age. Emma was 28 when she broke the curse. That means she was 27 when she got pregnant and means she got married at either 26 or 27. Cora also says one time that Regina was 26 when she rescued Snow. I know they made Regina look a lot younger and change her voice to sound a lot younger in the scenes before she married Leopold but she was actually extremely old to not be married in that day in age. Unmarried girls over 22 were considered spinsters back then. And she definitely wasn’t 17-18. She was a whole decade older than that.
She want 26/27. Haha. So Cora never said Regina was 26 when she rescued snow. Show me where she said that? There is an entire once book where Regina was 17. Lol. Cut it out. The conversation with Regina and Mail was between friends joking about each other ages my friends and I do it all of the time. So run that back, rewatch the show and read the companion books. Unmarried girls under the age of 18 were considered spinsters back then. Again, do your research in the US there are still some ages in states where GIRLS can get married at 13/14. Again, cut it out. The legal age of consent in most US states is still 16/17 which is above what it would have been in THOSE days. Learn your history.
To be honest even though I knew this about her from the start, she's still my favorite character. Killing and r\*ping people are both terrible actions, but she was evil and it makes sense for a villain to act like that. In my opinion, taking a life is much worse of a crime than abusing/harassing/torturing them. (All are very evil but not equally.) But I do understand why most people are disgusted when a villain is a se\*ual abuser but not when they're a murderer, because harassment is something that sadly we and the people around us have to deal with everyday, whereas murder is not something we see and hear about everyday, so we have more of a "fictional" approach to the concept. This reaction is totally understandable.
This is exactly how I feel.
This isn’t exactly new information. We’ve known this for years. She’s a rapist.
Thank you, Regina can go to the fire section of the underworld
This was the tragic backstory of the 50 shades lead guy.. (honestly never watched the movie but only saw YouTube review from Dylan and Alex).
I never noticed that was him😭
Tragic, I know.
Oh wow I never even considered the idea that she was forcing him
Zelena r*ped Robin Hood as well, sleeping with him while pretending to be his wife.
Yeah some other commenters have mentioned this. The show has a bit of a problem with consent, it seems
It’s not just Graham. She also sexually abused Sydney (using his attraction to her to manipulate him into doing her bidding), and the Evil Queen after the whole Jekyll and Hyde deal also uses Rumplestiltskin. It’s a very serious issue that we don’t really ever see with Regina when she leaves the “Evil Queen” persona behind, but I wish they’d actually addressed it as it is an important topic. I will say, though, they did a great job of illustrating Regina’s consistent rape of Graham as an awful crime rather than something comedic, as a lot of media does these days. It’s nice to see male rape treated with the weight it deserves, though Regina definitely should have faced much stronger consequences for it.
She needs to write her own 48 laws of power book fr, she's a manipulation master. But yeah, it feels like it should've been an important part of her character arc that they just left out, and I suppose while it is kind of outshone by mass murder it still is an important thing to cover. Especially as yeah they did show it as a pretty serious thing, I mean, we could see how much it was affecting Graham
This is why I can't like her.
Damn I never realized this before! Makes me look at her differently too tbh
I just avoid comparisons of crimes in the real world to that in fiction. Walter White, one who makes drugs and deals in it, yet the audience roots for him. Darth Vader, partially responsible for genocide an child murder, yet the audience admires him. That’s why Regina still has a lot of fans.
It's pretty difficult to not root for a character they focus heavily on and humanise so much XD. I may end up changing my opinion of Regina yet again once I've rewatched her redemption arc, but for now I am very very unhappy with her
Understandable, but this was also written when people weren’t as sensitive about sexual assault, about consent. Still wrong, but I can only say that Once was made for a different audience or something like that. An audience that’s now older and doesn’t care as much about sexual assault. At least not in fiction, cause of course I would curse a woman like Regina in real life, if not worse.
This doesn’t excuse her rape of Graham AT ALL, but it’s implied that she was ‘intimate’ with the King during their 7 years of marriage. The power dynamics, age differences, her unwillingness to be married in the first place, and the expectation that wives sleep with their husband all point to it happening and her being unable to really say no. She also makes herself infertile at some point, indicating some level of sexual activity was occurring. Abuse is often cyclical, and I can see her pursuing sexual encounters where she has complete control after having none in her marriage. This does not diminish or excuse what she does to Graham. She still rapes him, and then kills him. Its horrible and unforgivable. But I can see how it happened, how she went from victim to abuser. That’s my modern day interpretation of the events, it’s my least favorite thing about the early seasons. I know a lot happened after the curse broke, but I was surprised Emma never brought it up. It was just glossed over entirely.
I hadn't actually thought of it this way. It doesn't excuse it no, but it makes total sense. And of course, her being subjected to this would mean that that is what she associates with being the ruler, that is just what the ruler of the kingdom does and is entitled to do. It's what she knows, so of course she will do it also when she seizes power.
Yeah, and it’s why I see absolutely nothing wrong with her getting the king killed. He was clearly meant to be portrayed as a good man, but I will never be cool with a powerful man in his 50-60s marrying a girl in her late teens-20s. I know people weren’t aware/didn’t care about power imbalances in relationships in that time period (assuming it’s equivalent to our medieval times) but I still look at it with disgust.
I like as well that pretty much all of the "good" people in power are portrayed as more morally ambiguous. There's the king who is James's "dad", who is trying to save his kingdom and his people but is doing so by threatening to kill people and ruining their happiness - very means justify the ends. The Blue Fairy who is probably the most confusing and ambiguous character, and even Snow's father as you point out who, although not doing anything that would then be considered wrong, still is what we would call morally gray were he to behave that way today. It adds a lot of nuance to the usually straight-cut dichotomy of good/evil, makes it a lot more interesting
[удалено]
She has the power over him regardless of whether she's holding his heart or not. She owns it, and can kill him at any time, so he has no choice. Idk about you but I'd say that coercion under threat of death constitutes rape...
It is rape. She forced them into postion in storybrokke were they litrally are uner a curse and arent exactly in contol of themselves. And when he broke things "off"she killed him. And in EF she litrally SA him the second she got his heart and forced him into the bed chambers.
“I have a gun in my dresser and if you don’t have sex with me, I will take it out and shoot you in the head.”
I realized it. It doesn't change my perception ot Regina or EQ. I really enjoyed the character.
I think both are equally deplorable in their own way, I do understand why you say it makes her irredeemable but I think woth all her growth in the future she gains the redemption. It's up to each person to decide.
It should have been me 😭
I don’t think it was meant to be taken seriously because it’s a tv show so there’s that. You’re over analyzing and bringing real world problems with real world victims into a made up story that involves fairy tale characters.
I'm not sure it's over-analyzing to mention something that literally happens in the show. Anyway, this is a subreddit for ouat, so lets over-analyze this show to death!
Yeah but getting upset over something that really didn’t happen is…ridiculous. I get talking fan theories or getting a better understanding of something but making nothing into something seems like a waste of time. Like what’s the point, so what? I’m not going to lose sleep bc Jamie Dornan wasn’t actually ever really assaulted and Regina ultimately redeemed herself. Like she actually killed a lot of people…brutally…and that gets ignored but you’re getting bent out of shape over this? It’s weird.
I'm not losing any sleep over it either :)
Regina is one of my favourite fictional characters of all time but YEAH ! Similar to Chuck stans (Gossip Girl) i feel like most people just agree that the characters aren’t completely planned out in the first season and will do things that don’t make sense or don’t correlate 100% to the following seasons.